HalfLife: Lost In The Fight
by Lambert1
Summary: Dr Wallace Breen, Thanks for the reviews this has now bneen beta read and redone please R&R all of you fellow readers :D
1. A New Arrival

**Lost In The Fight**

Carl Samson gazed out into the old, musty carriage. His tired, weary eyes were spinning. His head was throbbing; a large green lump was bulging on the back of his slim head. His clothes were tattered and covered in dirt, the glasses perched on his thin nose were cracked, and his grimy face was badly cut - that had happened when the dauntless Combine soldiers had attacked him, like rabid dogs converging on a dying rabbit.

His ocean-like blue eyes looked down at the dusty metallic floor, and he ran his hand through his spiked black hair. A painful twinge careered through his head and an agonised expression crossed his face.

Suddenly, he remembered what had happened -

/Flashback/

The overhead speaker system roared into life as he looked at the monitors of the factory.

"The Combine are coming - evacuate the factory premises immediately," it said calmly.

Immediately afterwards came the sounds of hammering footsteps and screams as men and women sprinted across the monitors in front of him. The Combine had come to Earth two months ago and were slowly toppling city after city; Warsaw was next.

They started to appear on the monitors, clubbing anyone they could find into brutal submission. Their batons crashed down onto the poor workers' shoulders, and they fell with pitiful screams. They gazed up at the cameras, then pointed and started towards the door, just as the elite soldiers entered the gated courtyard shouldering sub-machine guns.

Carl turned sharply and dashed through the old, battered door. The metal stairs clanged ominously as he pelted down them. A Combine soldier saw him.

"Stop, civilian!" he shouted behind his gaunt mask. Carl ignored him and turned down a deserted corridor. Gunshots rang out as the Combine soldier took aim.

The corridor was a dead end. Carl didn't even bother to consider stopping; instead he launched himself towards the only exit - the window. The glass shattered as 150 pounds of Carl went soaring through it and he landed hard on the steel fire escape. The steel cut into his skin and blood dripped onto the ground underneath.

Carl flung himself down the stairs, nearly tripping under his own feet as bullets lodged themselves in the wall beside him. Plaster dust was still clouding his vision as he dashed into the dying brown bushes.

/End Flashback/

Suddenly, the Combine communication system blared out through the empty carriage and echoed into the rest:

"Five minutes till estimated arrival at City 15. This is the end of the line so leave the train immediately when it enters the station," it hissed evilly, like a coiled snake ready to strike.

A Civil Protection soldier strode up the aisle and hit Carl in the side of the head; Carl was so weak that he fell to the floor. Even behind the terrifying mask Carl could imagine the Combine soldier smiling evilly, just savouring the moment. The soldier walked briskly out of the carriage waiting to pick on some other survivor, the stun stick pounding in between his gloved hands.

Carl thought back again...

/Flashback/

The twigs cut into his skin and caught on his clothes as he made it towards a chain link fence. The Combine soldiers were close behind him, firing their slender H&K pistols, which they had probably stolen when they first came to Earth. Carl threw himself onto the fence and scrambled over it. He landed heavily on his left foot and felt his ankle bone crack. Carl pressed on anyway, his teeth gritted as he made his way across the deserted road. Combine soldiers were already over the fence and chasing after him hungrily so they could beat him.

To his horror a Strider smashed through a nearby building, sending bricks and debris everywhere. Its spindly legs were stained with blood and covered with the bloodied innards of the people that it had skewered on them. A deep thundering noise built up, then discharged as blinding white light shot out of its warp cannon. It blew a deep channel into the road, and Combine soldiers dived to avoid the fire.

The fire hit one unfortunate soldier and he was instantly obliterated; small lumps of burnt flesh sprayed in every direction. The Combine soldiers spoke furiously into the communication devices behind their unsightly masks as Carl scrambled away. A truck was ahead of him; it looked drivable.

A soldier charged him, throwing him to the ground like a sack of potatoes; dirt went into Carl's dry mouth and excruciating pain cascaded up his leg.

The Combine stared down at him.

"Take this sucker!" he shouted and picked up a brick beside him. He raised it, then smashed it into Carl's head. There was a flash of bright light, and Carl blanked out.

A few hours later, a couple of Metro police were standing in front of him.

"Get on this train, scum, and we'll see you in City 15," they said angrily, as they shoved Carl into the dusty carriage of the train.

/End Flashback/

The overhead speakers screamed out again.

"This is City 15 - please go to the nearest exit immediately and exit the train. I repeat - this is the end of the line," it droned.

Metro police were coming up the corridor; Carl quickly snatched up what he had on him and left the bleak, empty train. He was now standing on an enormous station platform with civilians mulling about and Metro police causing havoc in between.

A policeman approached him.

"Follow me," he said sternly.

Carl complied; he didn't want another lump to match the one on his head. They weaved in and out of the civilians, before going into a dark, deserted changing room.

"Put these on," hissed the policeman.

Carl put on the shoddy blue overalls and the pair of brown boots that he'd been given.

"Go," the policeman ordered.

Carl snapped and punched the soldier in the face; a significant CRACK meant that something was broken. The policeman collapsed to the ground and Carl picked up his holstered pistol; he didn't know what he was doing, but it felt good. He put the gun in his pocket.

'You never know,' he thought reasonably.

The large station invited him back in. A large scanner floated above him, taking snap shots. He was tempted to punch that as well after what the Combine had done to his family, but decided against it, lest he be arrested like so many others had been.

The Combine, when they arrived, had immediately started to kill most of the population of Earth; in two weeks they had reduced the world's population by a third. After two months, the population was down to one sixth of what it was and the survivors were forced to be the slaves of the Combine; they had also been specially adapted to not have any "wants" any more.

Dr Breen, loathed and feared by civilians, had become a puppet of the Combine and had helped to make civilians "support" the Combine's ways. The Combine, when it arrived, had killed Carl's mother and sister immediately in his old London apartment. Carl and his father had taken one of the last planes out of Britain to Eastern Europe and Poland. Carl's father had joined a resistance movement but it had been peppered with moles and within one week of losing his sister and mother, Carl had also lost his father.

A tear welled up in Carl's eye but he brushed it away angrily; **this was now a place where emotions were blocked out and didn't count if he cried only he would be affected.**

He moved up to a doorway, where a civilian was being told to pick up rubbish.

"Pick it up," the guard ordered.

The civilian obediently put the trash back in the bin.

"Go," the guard ordered.

The civilian moved past and the guard hit the civilian twice on the back; the civilian flinched but did not show any other emotions.

Carl trudged through the metal gates, which were flanked by two guards with batons held menacingly. A gunshot rang out behind him...


	2. A Quashed Rebellion

**Lost In The Fight**

**A Quashed Rebellion**

The bullet dug into the concrete wall just beside Carl's shoulder. The civilian that had just been beaten sprinted away, screaming. The Civil Protection soldiers looked up to see four civilians - rebels - carrying pistols. They began to shoot again.

The Civil Protection soldier nearest to Carl shouted "Resistance in City 15, Station 3 - please send immediate reinforcements, I repeat rebellious forces in Station 3!" but the receiver only buzzed in reply.

The Metro policeman whipped up his Stun-Stick then charged at the rebellious group. The rebels took aim and fired; the four bullets ripped into the Combine's armour, throwing him back, and blood spattered on the wall. A deafening high-pitched squeal emitted from the Combine's mouthpiece - he was definitely dead.

Another soldier yelled into the receiver:

"MAN DOWN, MAN DOWN! Where are those reinforcements? This is CP-876 reporting in!" she said furiously.

Suddenly Combine Elite started to pour into the station, carrying sub-machine guns. One shouted above the now echoing Alert announcement on the station speakers:

"Give up now!"

The rebels all showed rude hand gestures.

A Civil Protection Officer came up behind Carl, grabbed his arms and dragged him off to the room with the dead soldier in it.

"I had nothing to do with it," Carl gasped.

"We saw you, civilian!" shouted the soldier, and Carl cowered; he was going to be killed on the first day in thi_s_ city, his _new_ home.

A soldier wandered in. The officer made a confusing hand gesture and the soldier went away saying, "Have fun, sir!". Suddenly, the officer took off his mask; it was Barney Calhoun, one of the few people that survived Black Mesa with Gordon Freeman. Barney was about as unlucky as Carl, he was working as a security guard at the fabled Black Mesa Facility, when the Xen forces escaped Barney managed to survive the aliens, soldiers and black-ops to make out into the hell-hole which the Combine had made.

"I'm sorry about that argument, I just had to convince them," he said, smiling, and glanced at the CP on the ground "Good job, but you really should have thought about all the security. It took me ages to delete that file," he murmured. He glanced up again. "You're a bit quiet, aren't you?" he asked.

"Sorry, I'm just so shocked to see y - "

Carl's words were cut off as they heard several harsh knocks at the back entrance.

"Go, quickly!" Barney said, motioning towards the exit. Carl turned quickly and dashed out of the rusty doorway.

The station in front of him was a complete mess; four dead rebels had been left dead in the centre of the plaza, surrounded by Combine soldiers. One spat on him. Carl's anger boiled up inside him again, but this time he sat down on the bench, letting his anger drain away as two of the Combine soldiers half-carried, half-dragged the bodies away. The trail of blood that they left behind them was enough to indicate which way they were doing.

As the dead Combine soldier was carried off on a metal stretcher, Carl stood up again, astounded by what had happened. It was coming - he could sense it - but when?

A tall, dark man with short hair was crying softly into the tattered blue overalls he was wearing. Carl approached him; he already knew what this was about. The man turned around, ready to pour out his sadness to somebody else.

"They killed her! She wasn't even with the rebellion, she ran past and they shot her, in cold blood," he cried, as tears poured out on to his blue overalls.

"I know, I know," Carl mumbled. He knew it was harsh but, in this 'new' world, you had to be.

The man looked up and Carl saw his miserable, tear-stained face take on a slightly less unhappy expression.

"Thanks for that," he said sheepishly. "By the way, I'm Matthew."

Slowly, Matthew got back up and they walked down the yellowing, tiled corridor.

Matthew's story was even more unpleasant than Carl'sHe was just 18 and most of this had been forced on him. He had no living relatives or friends; he was completely alone in the world. Carl's blond hair swayed as he walked and it kept getting into his eyes as he walked through the food court

Three identical, evil-looking machines lined one of the food court's walls. The metal tables were set in rows and aisles that were littered with rubbish. There was also a metallic drinks dispenser on the wall; Carl approached it, wanting to drink the cool water, as he hadn't had a drink for ages. The cool trickling water was near his lips when -

"STOP!"

Matthew sprinted up to him and pulled Carl aside.

"What?" said Carl, confused.

"Do you _want _to become a mindless drone like most of these people?" Matthew asked him.

"Of course not!" Carl retorted with disgust.

"Well then, don't drink the water. It's filled with toxins that make you very 'compliant' to the Combine," Matthew told him, and Carl quickly backed away from the drinks dispenser.

The metallic city scanners floated overhead, automatically taking photos of passing civilians.

One of them floated overhead; the camera's flash blinded them briefly before it buzzed away again.

"Stubborn things, aren't they?" Matthew said scornfully, as he noticed Carl glaring up at one.

"Yeah," Carl replied.

They stepped out into the cold, frosty air. City 15 was a desolate wreck of a city, covered in bleak greyness and awash with a sense of overpowering doom. A large panel hung on the side of a building; Dr Breen's wrinkling face was plastered on it, rambling about 'How the Combine is our friend' and how it was 'There to protect us', unaware that essentially, he was little more than a pawn in the Combine's intergalactic chess game. Meanwhile, civilians were milling aimlessly around on the cobbled streets far below, seemingly unaware that anything was wrong with their city. It was plain to see, however, that all was not well; barricades had been set up at certain points of the intersection, and a statue in the centre of the plaza had been shattered. Three legs of what had probably been a stone animal were still visible amid the wreckage, but the rest of the statue was now just a pile of debris.

Matthew and Carl slowly descended the steps, and the marble underfoot made a feebly clicking noise with every step they took. In spite of the devastation, the Combine had tried to make this area as presentable as possible, but it hadn't worked; bullet holes were clearly visible in the marble steps, and the unsightly wreckage of the statue was no less obvious.

"Which apartment block are you in?" Matthew asked.

"I don't know - they basically said 'Find one'," Carl answered.

"Well, our apartment block isn't the grandest, but we're happy for you to come and stay there," Matthew said warmly.

Carl nodded gratefully, while crossing off another thing on his mental checklist - at least he now had somewhere to sleep in this bleak city. They continued to walk slowly towards one of the metallic barriers that surroundedeach building. A scanner was gliding above the door, idly scanning people.

Matthew and Carl passed through the massive bulk of the gate. As soon as they were through, they saw that the other side of the city had become a hell-hole. The Combine still hadn't taken this part of the city over completely, so there were APCs roaming the streets like ravenous hounds. Several apartment blocks towered above them; they were huge blue unmodernised buildings, with most of their windows either cracked, blown out or simply boarded up with large wooden boards.

They arrived at one particularly shabby apartment block. The door was splintered and the door-knob lay on the ground beside it. The hall turned out to be a tiled room containing a pot plant and two shabby sofas, both of which were occupied.

The stairs creaked as they went upstairs and into Matthew's apartment. There were two sofas in the room.

"You can take that one," said Matthew, gesturing towards the blue sofa. The rest of the room was dilapidated, fraying, and pink, carpet lined the floor, a small wooden television was perched on a small, creaking, table. Dr Breen's face was, yet again, plastered over it. A shabby kitchen was in the corner with cartons and rusting tins on the counter. The cooker looked as if it was a tomb to rotting food.

Suddenly, a crash erupted from downstairs and a man ran past the apartment, yelling at the top of his voice:

"It's an APC!"


	3. APC's At Dawn

**APCs At Dawn**

The smoke clogged up Carl's lungs and lingered in the air. People tumbled out of rooms to see the commotion downstairs.

"Bloody hell," Matthew gasped, sprinting alongside Carl as they thundered down the stairs.

The carnage downstairs was phenomenal; the APC had careered through the lobby of the apartment block, and the wall that it had come through had been obliterated. Rubble and dust littered the floor; the fire consuming the APC was slow and crackled softly).

There was a gaping hole in the back of the APC, the metal bent in at odd angles, and the constant ringing of the high-pitched squeal signified that the Combine Elite inside were dead.

There were also two bodies lying on the floor - they had been sitting on the sofas when the APC had smashed into the room, and the force of the impact had flung them right across the hall. They now lay on the ground, their bodies crushed and their blood spilling onto the floor. People were already crowding around them.

Rebels burst through the door, cheering loudly.

"YES!" they shouted as they strode into the room, their guns swinging above their grimy heads.

It was then that they noticed the bodies lying on the floor.

"Shit," said one of them in a low voice.

The team's medic dashed over to the victims, but when she got a closer look at the bodies, she could see that it was no use trying to help them. She shook her head.

"They're dead, sir," she said sadly.

The team's mood changed from glee to depression in an instant They gathered everyone together as their commander, a man named Danny, walked forward.

"This APC - " he gestured to the smouldering wreck behind him, "was patrolling behind your building when it noticed us. It fired on us but luckily one of our soldiers managed to take aim and fired a rocket at it. Unfortunately it lost control and, well... it ended up here," he finished lamely.

Most of the onlookers looked deeply displeased, but there were still a few weak smiles visible in the crowd. However, their hearts all froze with fear as the sounds of marching soldiers and the rolling of APCs echoed through the high-rise streets.

"Hide!" the commander shouted, and the groups of people scrambled in different directions, taking cover behind the doors and the items of furniture strewn across the room.

Seconds later, an APC smashed through the centre of the front wall, firing wildly. Bullets smashed into the wall and at the same time, Combine grenades sailed through the windows.

"Get Down!" bellowed the commander.

Apocalyptic booms rang out and dust trickled down through the air. The APC was starting to take more tactical aim now, and the team dived behind the vehicle for cover. One of the rebels clambered up the side of the APC and aimed the massive calibre gun on top.

At the same time, the Combine Elite flanking the APC fired their sub-machine guns into the room. Nothing was spared. Civilians were ripped to shreds as their hiding places disintegrated under the hail of gunfire. Immediately afterwards the rebel gunner was shot and he tumbled down from his position, landing on the floor in a pool of his own blood.

To Carl's shock, Matthew immediately sprang up and placed himself behind the heavy machine gun. Hell broke loose as he shot wildly at the line of Combine Elite, which collapsed instantly in the face of the superior firepower. However, a second APC swerved to a halt behind the first and took aim with its modified rocket launcher, lining up the wrecked APC in its sights.

Before it could fire, one of the rebels lobbed a smoke grenade at the ground; confusion broke out as the Combine soldiers and civilians grappled with each other in the dim light and smoky air. Cries of joy and screams of pain were just audible through the sound of gunfire. Light bulbs exploded and rained down glass as a few stray bullets ricocheted across the room.

Suddenly, a rocket whizzed through the room, illuminating the area as more rubble fell to the ground. The smoke cleared, and a stunning sight lay before them - the Combine had been wiped out. Sadly, most of the civilians were also dead.

Carl shot a glance across the room and saw, to his relief, that Matthew was still alive, although he was splattered with blood. There was no sign of the rebel group; they had already left the scene.

Matthew climbed down the wrecked APC.

Slowly, a man appeared from the rubble. He pulled himself up out of the debris and brushed the dust of his uniform blue overalls.

"Hi, I'm A-Alex - Alex Hiscocks..." he stuttered.

Alex paused to ruffle his black hair and began to rub the dust out of his dark brown eyes.

"We've got to get out of here," he urged them.

The three men glanced around the room; they were rebels now, and from now on they would have to survive against the Combine.

'Those photos of us have probably been sent off to the Citadel by now, so they can program the scanners to hunt us down,' Carl thought.

Matthew picked up the sub-machine gun and several spare clips from the floor. Alex picked up a Combine-manufactured shotgun and some shells, and Carl picked up a pair of H&K pistols; he had been the best in his army training squad at the pistol range and felt most comfortable using them than any other weapon.

They looked around; their eyes all converged on the APC outside and they sprinted up to it. Alex lunged into the driver's seat, while Matthew sat behind the modified rocket launcher with a grin on his face, forcing Carl to sit in the back.

"All ready?" Matt called out, as the sounds of the Combine started drawing near again.

"Yes!" Alex and Carl shouted.

"Now drive!"

The engine roared as they zoomed out of the street and onto the empty roads of City 15. Rockets whizzed off as Matthew ripped into the few Combine patrols in the area, and it wasn't long before high-pitched beeps sounded out. The joy was short-lived, however, because a gunship was soon upon them and following behind like a cloud of death.

Machine gun bullets lay waste to the thin metal walls of the APC; Matthew fired the rockets off at the gunship but it was too agile and swiftly outmanoeuvred them. Carl threw open the metal doors and fired his dual pistols at the helicopter. Small bullet holes appeared in the glass, but the craft was already arming its rockets...

"Swerve!" Matthew shouted.

The APC veered violently across the road as rockets hailed down, causing large craters to appear in the road surface. A second gunship appeared beside the first; the Combine wanted their blood and they were determined to get it. More machine-gun bullets slammed into the APC, puncturing a tyre, and the APC started to swerve dangerously.

"Shit - I can't control her!" Alex screamed.

The wind picked up ferociously and the gunships started to come full circle for one last deadly embrace. They prowled round and locked onto their target, then fired-


End file.
